Coming from an era where people paid for their video games, once I got my feet wet with Rippers, I went ahead and put money into acquiring Prestige Points. I basically have all of the really good upgrades. I have 8 equipment slots. I have 9 ally slots. I've added almost everyone on these boards as friends, in order to have a lot of PC allies. I mention this to show where I'm coming from and what my point of view is. One could easily assume that I am "over-powered" in comparison to the average Rippers player.

I did a lot of leveling by adventuring, then selling off any loot drops, and using my money to purchase Pinch of Salt and Small Copper Tank...2 ingredients which are green and sold for 6/7 Ls each. Again, my Lodge upgrades are an advantage - I have an Herbarium and Laboratory, which means that combining 2 Small Copper Tanks nets me 1.5 times my Rank in XP, and I receive back 1 Small Copper Tank...in other words, I pay 6 Ls for roughly 75 XP at level 50.

What I have seen through my leveling process is that the "penalties" for everything in this game are incredibly severe. If you adventure, you run the risk of losing all of your hearts in a couple of clicks. Given that 1-in-20 clicks is a failure, adventuring is NOT a good way to level, since a quick bout of bad luck means your play session is over in 3 or 4 clicks.

If you hunt, then you lose hearts every time you fight, plus you lose TONS of hearts whenever you fail an attack. Again, hunting can easily result in a play session of a few clicks as well. The only saving grace that hunting has is that with a few good loot drops, you could "buy" your way into a few extra levels using the method I described above and exploiting failed research.

I have found Social Standing to be utterly worthless. I have a ton of Lodge upgrades, but my Social Standing is only 38, which is plenty to keep my upgrades paid for. Surely, the trade-off of buying Social Standing vs. Power, Courage, Speed or Intellect is obvious...12 points of Social Standing is 3 points of any other stat...12 points of Social Standing MAY result in 1 or 2 Allies with +1 or +2 to one of your stats. What's the point of this when you can easily invite a few Rippers players to your Facebook and gain the benefit of their items for free?

Intellect is insane. Putting any points into Int in the beginning WILL completely gimp out your character. The only thing that Intellect is used for is adventuring. Its side-benefits are an increase in Hearts and HP. However, adventuring has that flaw that I mentioned earlier. When I was at earlier levels, maybe up to 30 or so, the amount of Intellect that was needed for adventuring was a level that I could acquire via smart use of my allies and gear. However, at rank 55, which I'm at now, the Intellect needed for just about any adventure is 80+.

So this brings me to my main gripe: At rank 55, I have no way of "balancing" my character. I have 1 weapon: Gatling Pistol, level 41, +14 Damage, +12 Speed. I have 9 of those. 1 shared for my friends, and 8 that I actually use in combat. There is no other item that is worth using. I do have 1 Tome of Set with +15 Intelligence, but that's not enough to help me achieve the necessary Int to adventure. Hence, without any real help, the only way I can adventure would be for me to spend points on Intellect. Am I going to do that? Of course not. It's far better for me to simply avoid adventuring altogether. So, there's one of the game's gameplay avenues ignored.

What frustrates me is that the infrastructure for this game is set up in such a way that it could be very loose and fun. There is Rippertech to improve your character, a point-based leveling system, Gear, Allies...with so many vehicles for "coolness" and improvement, why do we all keep hitting such brick walls, and even the "successful" people have to find weird ways of getting ahead.

In the end, it feels like the player is being too controlled and corralled...again, the penalties for everything in the game are waaaaay too severe. There's no way that I risk fighting unless I have a 95% chance of hitting and avoid being hit. There's no way that I risk adventuring without a 95% chance of success. Even then, the critical failures are just so harsh that it literally ticks me off when one occurs. I *hate* losing 18 to 24 hearts on *1* monster fight. I put money into this game, and I want to enjoy it...I simply don't want or care for 30-second play sessions every 2 hours.

Look, I'm not stupid...I've played billions of MMORPGs, text-based MUDs, and countless browser-based MMOGs. I understand the need for the treadmill and keeping players coming back. You don't want to suddenly allow people to play indefinitely. But the current level of difficulty and play time are just too much. Again, I call myself "overpowered", and if I feel this way, I can't imagine how the typical player must be feeling about this game.

My suggestions:

1) Make each fight have a heart "cost" of 0 to 2 hearts. 0 hearts if the monster doesn't scare you, 1 heart on a "normal" scare, and 2 hearts on a "critical" scare.

2) Make Critical Failures take away HP instead of Hearts. Make a CF be -5 to -10 HP.

3) Monster damage needs to be reduced drastically. As it is, 3 hits from any monster will kill me right out. Whatever system is being used here needs to change from being percentage or difficulty-based to being a straight, absolute value. The reason for this is that I feel *0* advancement in my character...3 hits from Monsters has been killing me since level 2.

4) The Gypsy camp items should change every 15 minutes, not every hour. The reason why I was able to abuse failed research to gain so much XP is that I had a full hour of the Gypsy camp giving me the item I needed. I literally leveled from 32 to 51 in about 45 minutes. Also, a faster turn-over just lets players see a lot more items, and that's fun.

5) Looking at it from a game design standpoint, there are 2 finite resources in this game, Hearts and HP. When either one hits 0, then your play session is over. The more things that reduce Hearts and HP, the shorter play sessions are going to be. As it is now, it's far more likely for a player to lose all his Hearts before he loses his HP, as long as he keeps his Speed high enough to be 95/95 against monsters (95% chance to escape, 95% chance to hit). It would be ideal for both HP and Hearts to go down at a constant pace as a player plays. Suggestion #1 will keep reducing Hearts at a constant, manageable rate that. Suggestion #2 will keep Hearts from being reduced at the insane rate that it is now, and instead will steadily decrease HP. Suggestion #3 will reduce the random, yet incredibly annoying chance that a player dies in 3 hits. Suggestion #4 will allow players to have items available to change their stats to meet whatever challenges they want to face.

Hopefully this incredibly long-winded post goes some way towards improving this game. I already put money into it, so I'm going to be sticking around regardless, but I'd rather be playing a game I enjoy rather than one I feel tethered to because of the cash I already invested in it.

You are missing TWO huge points of npc Allies.
1. NPC allies can give you x amount of pounds per hour instead of a stat bonus. They do NOT need to be in your active party list, just in the reserve pool.
2. Unlike friends allies may be sacrificed in battle to escape wound penalties when you loose. A bit drastic but still an option.

I would like to voice my opinion on your opinion. I'm right behind you in level so I speak with some experience with the game.

I didn't think of the Copper Tank Ripper Tech loophole when I was leveling up, but that certainly needs to be fixed.

Penalties ARE very harsh.

Social Standing (along with Power) is where I put most of my points and it helped me advance quickly. I didn't even play the game most of the first week it was released. I just wanted to show that there are different ways to achieve success. There have been no new allies after Social Standing 85 (now at 135) and that is annoying.

I have got most of the Lodge Upgrades and they have made the difference between easy success and complete failure. As you rarely get Prestige freely, I could see how some would get frustrated.

I think Intellect is very important later on, but I could see player's getting very frustrated if they focused on it early on. RobitusinZ, there is a +22 Int item that helps alot for those high level adventures.

For a different point of view, I leveled almost entirely by adventuring. I had trouble in the teens and 40s, but other than that was able to alter my allies, gear or Rippertech to keep up with the needed requirements for each adventure. However, there is only one adventure available at about Level 40 and that is aggravating.

There seems to be almost no good Courage-increase items. There also is no Melee weapons worth having after the earlier levels in the 20s.

I do agree that attempting any attacks or skill checks at anything less than 95% is foolhardy. 95% seems more like 80%, 80% like less than 50% and anything less a complete waste of time. Like RobitusinZ said, the penalties are so severe, you don't dare try.

Hunting is pretty much a waste of time after you pass Level 20 as the risk is great and the reward is a small. When you need thousands of experience points to move on and are getting 20 or so per hunt with the very real possibility of being beat, getting items you can already buy and losing tons of Hearts, it just doesn't make sense to try it.

Fund seem meaningless, in my experience, once you enter the 20s in Level.

I've attempted TONS of Rippertech three ingredient combinations and have failed. I've seen only a few on the boards and they don't seem worth the extra effort. Perhaps I've not stumbled on the right combinations; I don't know.

I've loved playing the game and only bring up the above in the attempt to be helpful._________________Never play cards with a man called Doc

You are missing TWO huge points of npc Allies.
1. NPC allies can give you x amount of pounds per hour instead of a stat bonus. They do NOT need to be in your active party list, just in the reserve pool.
2. Unlike friends allies may be sacrificed in battle to escape wound penalties when you loose. A bit drastic but still an option.

1. Social Standing of 38 has given me 3 allies providing me with +20 Ls per hour. My Lodge upgrades (which are plentiful, as I've stated) only cost 11 Ls per hour. I feel that the funds-providing allies exist to fund the Lodge upgrades, since money can be acquired more efficiently through other means. In other words, the production from NPC allies is not your primary source of income.

Perhaps the upkeep of Lodge upgrades should be raised to make NPC allies more necessary? I don't think that's a very fun fix, though. I'd rather see more varied allies. If there was an NPC ally that I could get right now that had maybe +8 Courage or something, I'd take him. Or, if NPC allies went another direction entirely and instead of just adding yet more stats, they had unique abilities that changed certain "rules" of the game. They could be mini-Lodge-Upgrades, in a sense. How about an ally that grants +1% Crit Chance when he's in your team? Or another that gives +10% loot drop chance, or another that gives -5% Gypsy Camp costs. Little, minor abilities that can be used strategically and give more decisions for a player to make.

2. I've only sacrificed 1 ally, and that was when I was like level 10 or so. Since I sacrificed an ally that I was too high to get again, I lost him forever. At my next "death", it was more useful for me to just take the wound penalties and go take a nap.

Doc Holliday wrote:

...

Doc, thanks for adding your points. It's interesting to see where we've had similarities and differences. I'm just going to touch on the differences, since there's really no need to discuss where we agree.

Quote:

I didn't think of the Copper Tank Ripper Tech loophole when I was leveling up, but that certainly needs to be fixed.

The "loophole" doesn't really seem to be anything "wrong". As long as failed research gives XP, then the natural path is to use the cheapest items possible and just keep failing research. It looks like the upgrades like the Herbarium and Laboratory are there to actually SUPPORT that path of improvement. IMO, the best fix would be to make the Gypsy camp change items faster.

Quote:

For a different point of view, I leveled almost entirely by adventuring. I had trouble in the teens and 40s, but other than that was able to alter my allies, gear or Rippertech to keep up with the needed requirements for each adventure. However, there is only one adventure available at about Level 40 and that is aggravating.

Actually, I also leveled primarily through adventuring up to about 20-something. It was at that point where I found that I could level quickly by using failed research, so that's what I did. I actually "skipped" the 40s entirely. Up until the late 20s, though, adventuring WAS feasible, and I *COULD* switch up allies and gear to get the stats I needed. I actually had little trouble then. I think the quick leveling I did may be contributing to the difficulty I'm facing now...I wonder if maybe we've advanced a bit TOO quickly for what is currently available. In other words, maybe if I were rank 55 2 weeks from now, I'd be seeing a lot more content for rank 55s that just hasn't been created yet.

Savage Simon wrote:

...

Simon, the fact that you've been so active in the forums is what made me write my original post. I think Rippers is truly unique from all of the other Facebook app games, and I'd really like to see it succeed. From the first day I played it, I knew Rippers wasn't like anything else. So basically, I'll keep giving feedback until I'm told to shut up.

I do sometimes wonder why some guys even play games, if it's all about levels why bother? This game has stories that have been thought out and well planned, and if you ballance your character instead of being a combat munchkin you will never end up stuck when the bar is raised later, just plesently challanged. this is after all a mini R.P.G.

I do sometimes wonder why some guys even play games, if it's all about levels why bother? This game has stories that have been thought out and well planned, and if you ballance your character instead of being a combat munchkin you will never end up stuck when the bar is raised later, just plesently challanged. this is after all a mini R.P.G.

My advice...Read....Savour...Play....Enjoy!

xKx

I have read every adventure and enjoyed doing so. I also get a great thrill on doing the best that I can do and leveling is the result of that. It appears that is not your thang, and that's cool, but I don't think that makes it wrong. Also, bringing out the old combat munchkin term doesn't really make sense in this context. The game, with well written adventures to be sure, is mostly combat. My character is balanced with 100s in all the skills, except Courage. However, all of those skills directly relate to combat. My points above were given with the hope that they may help the game. Maybe they won't and that is PEGs call, but it doesn't mean I wasn't having fun or I'm not playing the right way!

In short, thanks for the advice (if directed at me), but I didn't need it, as I meet the criteria you mentioned already!

PS: Robo, I didn't mean to suggest that you were, using the Rippertech option, playing "wrong". In fact I like your suggestion about changing the store times. Sorry if it came off that way!_________________Never play cards with a man called Doc

I do sometimes wonder why some guys even play games, if it's all about levels why bother? This game has stories that have been thought out and well planned, and if you ballance your character instead of being a combat munchkin you will never end up stuck when the bar is raised later, just plesently challanged. this is after all a mini R.P.G.

My advice...Read....Savour...Play....Enjoy!

xKx

I have read every adventure and enjoyed doing so. I also get a great thrill on doing the best that I can do and leveling is the result of that. It appears that is not your thang, and that's cool, but I don't think that makes it wrong. Also, bringing out the old combat munchkin term doesn't really make sense in this context. The game, with well written adventures to be sure, is mostly combat. My character is balanced with 100s in all the skills, except Courage. However, all of those skills directly relate to combat. My points above were given with the hope that they may help the game. Maybe they won't and that is PEGs call, but it doesn't mean I wasn't having fun or I'm not playing the right way!

In short, thanks for the advice (if directed at me), but I didn't need it, as I meet the criteria you mentioned already!

PS: Robo, I didn't mean to suggest that you were, using the Rippertech option, playing "wrong". In fact I like your suggestion about changing the store times. Sorry if it came off that way!

If it makes you feel any better the comment wasn't directed at you, i was just getting weary of the opinion that Int based characters are "lame" and that all that matters is leveling. i certainly didn't aim the comment at any one person or post Just like you i enjoy doing the best i can (and have even been on the leader board of late), i just feel sorry for the guy's who made this really cool game, the guys at pinnacle seem to have the patience of saints and a lot of the time just get whinged at by a few very vocal blogers. i guess it just got to me thats all, no offence ment.

I do sometimes wonder why some guys even play games, if it's all about levels why bother? This game has stories that have been thought out and well planned, and if you ballance your character instead of being a combat munchkin you will never end up stuck when the bar is raised later, just plesently challanged. this is after all a mini R.P.G.

My advice...Read....Savour...Play....Enjoy!

xKx

I have read every adventure and enjoyed doing so. I also get a great thrill on doing the best that I can do and leveling is the result of that. It appears that is not your thang, and that's cool, but I don't think that makes it wrong. Also, bringing out the old combat munchkin term doesn't really make sense in this context. The game, with well written adventures to be sure, is mostly combat. My character is balanced with 100s in all the skills, except Courage. However, all of those skills directly relate to combat. My points above were given with the hope that they may help the game. Maybe they won't and that is PEGs call, but it doesn't mean I wasn't having fun or I'm not playing the right way!

In short, thanks for the advice (if directed at me), but I didn't need it, as I meet the criteria you mentioned already!

PS: Robo, I didn't mean to suggest that you were, using the Rippertech option, playing "wrong". In fact I like your suggestion about changing the store times. Sorry if it came off that way!

If it makes you feel any better the comment wasn't directed at you, i was just getting weary of the opinion that Int based characters are "lame" and that all that matters is leveling. i certainly didn't aim the comment at any one person or post Just like you i enjoy doing the best i can (and have even been on the leader board of late), i just feel sorry for the guy's who made this really cool game, the guys at pinnacle seem to have the patience of saints and a lot of the time just get whinged at by a few very vocal blogers. i guess it just got to me thats all, no offence ment.

Agreed. I LOVE PEG! They are the best! I've gotten where I only buy PEG (and their licensees) because I can trust that I will get a quallity product from decent people. Agreed on the Int comment, it is very important to complete adventures._________________Never play cards with a man called Doc

Different people play games differently, with different goals and for different reasons. I play RPGs tabletop as well as in video game form. Regardless, I enjoy the challenge, the conflict and yes, the combat. I get a lot of satisfaction from improving my characters.

On the other hand, I'm also a software engineer. So to me, games provide a peculiar form of entertainment - I like to dig in deep and "explore" that game, and figure out what makes it tick. I enjoy trying to reverse-engineer the game theory and design that goes into games. That's another level of challenge for me that I enjoy undertaking. If anything, I'm something like a white hat hacker...I don't have any interest in actually breaking into a game's code, I just try to work within the rules and see what are the mechanisms that make a game "tick".

Anyway, the point I want to get at is that I'm trying to give some meaningful feedback. You saw me on the leaderboard, it's not like I'm clueless as to what I'm doing in the game. I've made some discoveries and have some observations that are poignant. I'm not trying to bash on the developers...heck, if I didn't enjoy their creation, why would I even bother speaking up?...I have a very deep respect for Simon and all the other creators of this game. In that respect, I want to give my input as a consumer. This thread, unlike others, isn't just about griping and whining, it's about stating, "Look, we've seen an issue in this system...". I think we've done a good job in the few posts we've had of keeping it as a matter-of-fact discussion and not turn it into a "this suuuuuuuucks..." whinefest.

So basically, if you don't have something to discuss or critique, then just let this thread be. These are just words that can be easily ignored by anyone who doesn't want to read them, we're simply individuals who want to share our insight, regardless of how valuable it may be. Nobody's here to bash or lambast...again, why would we write 100 or 200 word essays on a topic we don't enjoy?

...
So this brings me to my main gripe: At rank 55, I have no way of "balancing" my character.
...

You can spend 20 prestige points to "reassign rank upgrade points."
I don't know because I have never had 20 prestige points whether that option allows you to reassign all 50+ ranks, but if it did, that might very well resolve your main gripe.

do you have your friends as allies or just the npc ones
hunting is generally more dangerous than adventuring
adventuring requires you to have good int and courage as well as speed
researching, gives you xp when you fail and as long as you have money making npc allies then just keep on buying cheep ingredients and combining them

you need a decent renown so you can earn money 30-50
primary stat is speed secondary stat is courage int and power dont matter as much

Friend as many people as you can who are playing Rippers, that's piece of advice #1. Friends share items which increase your stats...it's like having another slot of gear, except they are sharing much higher level weapons.

Second, don't waste any of your level up points on Power or Intelligence. When you need Intelligence, simply re-arrange your Allies or Gear. In fact, if you just hunt, you can skip Int entirely.

Speed and Courage are your main two stats for fighting. When you mouseover your opponents, you'll see their stats. Your Courage should be 10 points over their Courage, and your Speed should be about 10 points over theirs as well. When you have "enough" Speed, you'll notice that you have a 95% chance to Fight AND to Escape. The Escape chance is VERY important, since that's the chance of a monster missing you with its attack. Some people raise their Speed high enough to hit and don't realize that they're getting killed because their Speed isn't high enough to dodge attacks.

It sounds a bit like cheating, but if you hunt, you will make money from selling drops. With that money, you should buy cheap research ingredients. With those ingredients, FAIL researching a bunch of times = free XP. So basically, you hunt for cash, then get your "bonus" XP from research....it's just like adventuring, but you don't need Int.

I've largely followed RobitusinZ's method of leveling, though recently I thought I'd give Adventuring a shot again and see if anything has changed. So far, it looks like I keep getting the same adventure until I advance a new Rank in the current version.

The difficulty for the skill checks is pretty hefty, but I've found that I can just shuffle around Gear and Allies to maximize for the task at hand. (In fact, to save myself a few clicks and re-navigating, I've found that I can just open another window tab and point it at the Gear page or the Allies page while my other window is still sitting on the Adventure page.)

So, for instance, at level 60, when it's time to do a Speed test or fight, I have 4 equipment slots (+1 due to a Lodge Upgrade) and I fill those with three "Dueling Pistols" and one pair of Dueling Blades. Then, when I get to a place where I have to get to an Intelligence test (difficulty 90-something), I replace ALL of my weapons with "Prias Papers" (+ Int), and shuffle around a few of my Allies.

I then take the test, hope I don't get a critical fail (there's ALWAYS at least a 5% chance of failure or at least a 5% chance of success), and then when I get to the next screen, prepare to swap allies/gear around again. (If I do the allies/gear swapping in another window, though, the % chance of success/failure estimates on the Adventure screen will not automatically update, unsurprisingly.)

I haven't been through enough different adventures to be sure, but it looks as if the XP reward for completing an adventure is somewhere in the ballpark of 10x the XP reward for completing a single Hunt. The swapping-around of items is tricky and I occasionally make a mistake (oops) in the swapping, but then the alternative (burning through tons of copper tanks in failed Rippertech experiments) is awfully repetitive anyway.

One downside to the swapping of Gear/Allies to customize my stats (for an Int or Speed boost) is that my hit point total is determined by the grand total of my Intellect, Speed, Power and Courage at any given moment. As soon as I un-equip an item that was giving me a +12 Speed bonus, that means my hit point maximum just dropped 12 points. If I put in some item that boosts my Intellect by +15 (Tome of Set) or get an Ally on my team who grants be the same bonus, my maximum hit points jump up again, but my *current* hit points are only going to recover at the usual recovery rate.

So, if you're swapping equipment around mid-adventure, it's best to do one thing at a time. As in, de-equip ONE weapon to free up the slot and immediately put in an Intellect item to replace it, THEN de-equip the next weapon, and so forth. If you de-equip ALL your weapons at once, before replacing them with the Intellect boosting items (or vice versa), you'll take a deeper hit into your hit point total.

Also, just to explain my weapon line-up: I've currently got 3 ranged weapons and only 1 melee weapon. Ranged weapons only contribute their damage bonuses during the first round of combat, whereas melee weapons contribute their damage bonus every single round. (This doesn't apply to weapons put as shared weapons by allies: their damage bonuses apply for every round, regardless of type.)

I *need* to have at least one melee weapon in combat, so I go with the Dueling Blades (best bonus I could get for the time being), but I went ahead and filled up the other slots with ranged weapons, since ranged weapons seem to get more generous bonuses to stats. Plus, my Dueling Blades only do 2 points of damage. I'd have to go through several rounds of combat before having another Dueling Blades (2 points per round) would add up to the 15 points of damage the Dueling Pistols give me in the first round of combat - and that's not even factoring in the Speed bonus.

The only major downside to the Adventuring route for advancement right now is that even with 95% chance of success on the skill tests, I've still failed several times (and I haven't been keeping thorough notes to figure out whether or not I'm above or below that 5% critical fail mark on average), and when I do, I lose ALL Heart. (At level 60, I've got 34 Courage, which translates into 68 Heart ... but then I'm not sure what an expected score is for any stat at any given level. It could be that the "damage" was 68, and if only I'd had a few more points of Courage, I'd still have some Heart left over. For comparison, at level 60, when I fail a Courage check at the start of a battle - which usually happens - I typically lose from 7 to 12 Heart.)_________________

I used to equip a melee weapon, but found that my fists did 5 damage as opposed to the 1 or 2 I was getting with the melee weapons equipped.

I just threw on another pistol and to heck with it.

As for levelling, you're either gonna do a bunch of clicking in adventures, or a bunch of clicking in research. The one plus side, IMO, is that doing a lot of hunting gets me more Prestige points. I have a nice nest egg of PPs for when something tasty pops up.

Plus, the failed research I can do whenever it's convenient, while the hunting I can do pretty passively while I do other stuff.

As for levelling, you're either gonna do a bunch of clicking in adventures, or a bunch of clicking in research. The one plus side, IMO, is that doing a lot of hunting gets me more Prestige points. I have a nice nest egg of PPs for when something tasty pops up.

That's a good point. One night, when it seemed that there was a major series of flukes going on with critical hits and failures left and right, I managed to get a total of 4 Prestige Points during one "spree." (However, I have yet to repeat that feat, and I wonder if maybe that was a result of some temporary bug in the program that was promptly fixed before I could recover enough Heart to try it again.)_________________

I went the opposite route and increased Power and Speed, then Intellect and finally Courage. I pretty much only Adventured, with very little attention paid to Rippertech and Hunting, both of which I find boring. With this method, I advanced to the top of the Leaderboards in about a week. I'm now in the 70s, but there are no more adventures. I have over 10 of every ingredient and 25,000 in cash and could continue to advance pretty easily, but find Rippertech and hunting so tedious, that I rarely play the game now. So there's another path you could take!

PS: I spent money on Prestige somewhat liberally to get going. I think it would be hard to advance without doing so. There are some Lodge Upgrades that are essential._________________Never play cards with a man called Doc